NBC’s Absurdly Rosy Jobs Reporting

Friday morning’s Today show on NBC did its best to paint the most rosy scenario possible on Obama’s latest dismal jobs report. Attempting to inoculate Obama from this economic downturn, host Matt Lauer said that analysts he had “been reading” claimed that the economy will add up to 12 million new jobs, “no matter who is president in the next four years.”

This has already been the worst economic recovery since The Great Depression, but on Friday Lauer and CNBC analyst Jim Cramer put the best face on it they could with Cramer chipping in that there is “pent-up demand” that is sure to break soon. This disastrous economic and jobs climate is “not such a bad moment,” Cramer claimed.

In fact, Lauer tried to massage the news into a “party atmosphere.”

He began his report saying, “Now to this morning’s new jobs report and how it will impact this race, this after the Dow closed at 13,292 on Thursday. That’s the highest closing mark since December of 2007.” He continued with, “Not only was the Dow up in record territory, we had the NASDAQ hitting the highest mark since 2000, the S&P 500, the highest mark since 2008. Why the party atmosphere?”

Both Lauer and Cramer went on to paint their rosy picture with Cramer even claiming that the number of jobs will be “maybe 10,000 jobs” more than what was reported.

Neither Lauer nor Cramer, however, noted that this newest report of a mere 96,000 jobs added to the economy aren’t likely to be enlarged any time soon. After all, even July’s numbers were too rosy. One of the things few reporters are telling America is that the last jobs report is being revised downward.

Millions of Americans, though, have simply given up on looking for work. James Pethokoukis pointed out that if the participation rate in the workforce had remained the same as when Obama took office, we’d be seeing an 11.2 percent unemployment rate.

Despite all these facts, Cramer said things were good. “We’re seeing much better numbers from most of the companies that we deal with, particularly companies that are based in America. It’s really positive. The earnings are good.”

Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, BigJournalsim.com and all Breitbart News' other sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his opinion editorials and current events as well as appearing on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs.
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